


Something Lost, Something Found

by thesunkenship



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Except the Kid is More a Passenger Along For This Tenten-Centric Ride, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Team Gai bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-02 21:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10227884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunkenship/pseuds/thesunkenship
Summary: A handful of desperate tumbles during the war leave Tenten pregnant with Neji’s child. Two years later, the Hyuuga threaten to mark the child with the cursed seal. Tenten becomes a missing-nin.“I’m sorry,” Hinata said, bowing her head to avoid meeting Tenten’s eyes. “I thought I might be able to convince them - ” She broke off, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.“But you couldn’t,” Tenten finished for her, not unkindly.





	1. Chapter 1

“I thought we had more time,” Tenten said, taken aback. Hands shaking, she lowered her cup of tea to the table. Steaming liquid sloshed over the rim and onto bare wood. 

Neji had been branded with the cursed seal when he was four years old. 

In contrast, they had only just celebrated Yuuto’s second birthday. Lee had given him two-kilogram ankle weights to mark the occasion. They still sat on the corner of the kitchen counter; too heavy to be of any practical use and not yet put away. 

“I’m sorry,” Hinata said, bowing her head to avoid meeting Tenten’s eyes. “I thought I might be able to convince them - ” She broke off, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.

“But you couldn’t,” Tenten finished for her, not unkindly.

Hinata nodded mutely. She fixed her gaze on the sunshine-yellow curtains hanging above the kitchen sink. They fluttered weakly in the mellow autumn breeze. Her brows pinched together in guilt, or perhaps pity.

Tenten swore under her breath and sat back in her chair, one hand covering her eyes in displeasure. She had been counting on Hinata to make the changes in her clan she had promised. Perhaps that had been naïve. 

Neji had been a prodigy. He had been well liked and well respected. He had also been notoriously out-spoken in his criticism of the Hyuuga’s use of the cursed seal to bring its branch members to heel. Her lips twisting in disgust, Tenten theorised that the Hyuuga elders feared that Yuuto would shoulder Neji’s legacy. They saw him as a threat to be neutralised. 

Drawing an uneven breath, Tenten tried to quash her anger deep into her chest, sealing the worst of it away. She would vent her feelings at a later time. Right now, she needed to focus. 

“Can the Hokage intervene?” Tenten asked.

“The Hokage is forbidden to interfere in intra-clan politics, especially when those matters directly affect the clan’s right to protect the purity of its bloodline, its kekkai genkai, or its clan secrets.” Hinata answered with an apologetic wince, reciting the information in such a way as to suggest that she had already exhausted this line of defence. 

“What if I married into another clan? A powerful one,” Tenten suggested, mentally cataloguing which of her friends were of the appropriate pedigree. “The Akimichi are influential. As are the Aburame.”

Hinata shook her head sadly and said, “Yuuto would still be a Hyuuga. Within Konoha the Hyuuga’s right to control its bloodline is absolute.” 

This time, Tenten couldn’t control the sickening mixture of terror and unadulterated fury that was bubbling up into her throat. It just wasn’t fair. He was only a child. And he was her child. Tenten’s vision blurred. She surged to her feet, panting, with unshed tears glistening in her narrowed eyes. Her chair toppled over backwards and hit with floor with a crash. “There has to be something I can do!” She snarled.

Raising her chin, Hinata met Tenten’s gaze directly for the first time since she had entered the apartment. She spoke softly but in earnest, willing Tenten to accept her words as truth, unpleasant as they may be, “I’m sorry, Tenten, I really am. But as long as Yuuto has the potential to develop the Byakugan there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the elders from giving him the cursed seal.” 

For a horrible moment, Tenten considered the practical implications of blinding her son. Bile rose in her throat.

“How long do I have?” She asked, finally.

“Two weeks at the most.” Hinata bowed her head in apology.

The room descended into a heavy silence. Tenten pressed the palms of her hands into her eye sockets and turned away from the other woman, willing the tears not to fall. She hated crying in front of other people. It was as good as admitting defeat.

Taking her leave, Hinata rose from her chair, tucked it neatly into its place under the table, and padded towards the door. She smiled weakly at Tenten’s profile before leaving, opened her mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again wordlessly. The door shut with a soft click behind her.

Tenten stayed frozen where she stood, hunched into herself, until her breathing had steadied and her mind had cleared. She reached out to turn on the tap at the kitchen sink, cupped both hands under the stream, and splashed cold water into her face. Absently drying herself using her own sleeve, she then paced soundlessly towards her son’s bedroom, opened the door and slipped inside. 

She approached his cot and knelt on the floor beside him, gently holding one of his hands in her own as she studied his face intently. With the forefinger of her free hand, calloused and rough from years of dedicated training and active service, she traced lines and swirls across his forehead, imagining the shape that the cursed seal would take.

Yuuto’s eyes flickered open briefly at the contact.

Tenten knew what she had to do.

 

* * *

 

Tenten began her morning practice at 5am, the same as any other morning. 

Gai-sensei had drilled into her at a young age that a person’s physical and mental well-being depended on being up and active at the same time as, if not before, the summer sunrise, regardless of the time of year. His initial explanation, when organising his team’s very first training session, had been a convoluted and impossible to follow adaption of the age-old adage ‘the early bird gets the worm’; except this time the bird and the worm were engaging in mortal combat. Maybe. It hadn’t been completely clear.

As a Genin, Tenten had been eager to learn as much as she could from her sensei and, even if she hadn’t entirely grasped the intricacies of Gai’s speech (and she would cheerfully admit that she still didn’t, nearly a decade later and after numerous enthusiastic recitals), she had fully embraced the spirit of what she had interpreted his message to be: get up, get going, get ahead.

As well as creating more hours in the day in which to hone her skills and better herself, the early start allowed Tenten the opportunity to resolve any worries she had, or decisions that needed to be made, in relative serenity before the inevitability madness of a day in a hidden village began. Usually it was small things, natural hiccups in an otherwise cheerful life, but these were also the times that Tenten forced herself to confront her greatest fears.

Years ago, it had been in the early hours of the morning, running laps around Konoha, heart pounding and limbs throbbing, that Tenten had first acknowledged the unexpected result of the handful of desperate tumbles she had enjoyed with Neji during the war. Being on the front lines had been hard. At the dawn of every day noone could say for certain whether they’d survive to see the sunset. So when the sun did set, and they were alive to see it, they had taken what comforts they could find in the arms of those they trusted. 

Tenten had loved Neji, and she was positive that he had loved her too, but, even though it would have been nice to pretend, in her heart she knew that they had never been in love with each other. Their love was the love of comrades. And in a lot of ways that had been more valuable, more precious, and more meaningful to Tenten than any whirlwind romance could have been. 

On that morning, by the time she had joined Lee and Gai for breakfast (the usual place at the usual time), Tenten had sweated her way through the requisite amount of soul searching and had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only would she be carrying her pregnancy to term, she would be keeping the child.

Shaking her head, Tenten dispelled the memory. Up until this moment, it had been the single biggest decision she had ever had to make. She looked over at Yuuto, wrapped tightly in blankets to guard against the pre-dawn cold and settled in at the foot of a well-worn training post. She had no regrets.

Tenten breathed in deeply, bowed, and launched into a series of kicks and punches, exhaling with every hit. Her blood thrummed in pleasure. With each successive kata, she increased the tempo and the ferocity of her attacks.

“Within Konoha the Hyuuga’s right to control its bloodline is absolute.” 

That just meant she had to get Yuuto out of Konoha.  
This should have been an impossible choice to make. She should have been torn apart by the to-and-fro of conflicting loyalties, but Tenten was surprised to discover that she had already come to terms with her decision to abandon the village.

Tenten mentally shrugged to herself. If she let Neji’s child receive the cursed seal, then she might as well be organising a dance party on his grave.

She leapt into a spinning high kick, deemed the execution lacklustre, and restarted the kata from the beginning. 

With her decision made, Tenten’s next step was to create a realistic plan. In very simple terms what she needed to achieve could be divided into the following steps: Step One, leave the village; Step Two, survive outside the village. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly have any viable frames of reference for how a person became a missing-nin quietly: preferably with minimal violence and avoiding any unforgivable acts of betrayal. Itachi had massacred his entire clan and Orochimaru had been caught performing unauthorised, immoral human experiments. 

Not that Tenten didn’t appreciate that deserting Konoha with her two-year-old son, valuable future asset that he was, placed her firmly in ambiguous territory as far as being a traitor to the village was concerned. She was loyal to Konoha, she reasoned, she was just more loyal to her family.

Judging by the sky, she had at least another two hours before sunrise, and that was plenty of time to start fleshing out Steps One and Two while she worked up a sweat.

 

* * *

 

Tenten shifted uneasily from foot to foot, waiting to be admitted into the Hokage’s office.

Requesting extended leave from active duty was out of character for her, and she was worried that it had been a suspicious move to make. Even heavily pregnant, she had persisted in taking her fair share of shifts on the mission desk and in the archives. At the time, she had enjoyed Lee waxing lyrical about her indomitable work ethic, but now she feared that his very vocal admiration would hinder her current plans.

In preparation for this meeting, she had spent the last two days rehearsing what she considered to be a tragic and moving sob story. With every passing day Yuuto grew to look more and more like Neji, the lover who had been so cruelly snatched from her bosom when the fires of their love had only just set ablaze, and her long-buried emotional wounds were being unearthed once more. She had denied her anguish for too long and now needed time to grieve and to heal. Away from Konoha, with her son, for an extended period of time.

She had even made a point of mooning around the memorial stone, silently apologising to Neij for shamelessly exploiting his memory, and doing her best to look forlorn whenever other people were nearby. 

The doors opened with a soft creak. Shizune hurriedly ushered Tenten inside, smiling wearily as she directed the other woman to present herself for the Hokage’s attention.

Kakashi looked up from his desk and waggled his fingers at her in a casual greeting. “Shizune tells me that you’ve filled out all the paperwork already,” he said, lazily. “I can’t give you six months, but you can have three.” He turned his attention back to the paperwork stacked in front of him and lethargically reached for a pen, effectively dismissing her.

Tenten blinked in surprise. That was easy. 

 

* * *

 

Saying her goodbyes to Gai and Lee was considerably more difficult.

It was made all the more impossible because she couldn’t let either of them actually know that she was saying goodbye and, contrary to popular belief, neither of the two men was stupid. If anything, Gai could be disturbingly perceptive when it came to matters of the heart. 

If they suspected her of betraying the village, they wouldn’t hesitate to stop her. First, they’d appeal to reason: earnestly citing her vows of loyalty to Konoha and expounding upon the true meaning of the Will of Fire. Tears would be shed and harsh words exchanged. Worse, they would be disappointed in her. If that didn’t work, they would inevitably turn to force. 

Tenten was no fool. A confrontation had to be avoided at all costs.

A careful balance would need to be met between behaving normally and sharing meaningful last words. She would casually tell Gai how grateful she was to have had him as a Sensei; that he had become something of a father-figure to her; that without his support and guidance she would not be the person she was today. In an off-hand comment or two she would make sure Lee knew exactly how much she adored and respected him. He was her closest friend. They would exchange small, sincere smiles with each other and, when they parted ways at the end of the dinner, Tenten would have successfully said her goodbyes without betraying even a hint of the emotions whirling in her chest.

With this concrete idea for how the evening would proceed in mind, Tenten opened her apartment door. Unsurprisingly, Lee was flushed and out of breath. He was leaning heavily on the handles affixed to the back of Gai’s wheelchair. It would be a cold day in hell when Lee didn’t take every occasion to push himself to his physical limits, and Tenten had quickly learnt that Lee’s mind practically screamed ‘training opportunity’ whenever he needed to push Gai anywhere. Speaking of whom, Tenten was slightly surprised that her view of Gai was nearly completely obscured by the foliage of a large potted plant. 

Both men were grinning from ear to ear.

Tenten cocked an eyebrow questioningly but didn’t try to hide her amusement.

“A gift for you,” Lee answered, beaming. “You said you liked Sakura’s plants, so we got you one. The biggest in the store!” He added proudly, puffing up his chest. Gai nodded approvingly.

“Thank you,” Tenten said sincerely. 

She graciously accepted the gift, heaving it into her arms with some difficulty, and invited the men inside.

Lee immediately bounded towards Yuuto, who had been waiting obediently in the hallway to greet his mother’s guests, and swung him up into the air. Naturally a shy and quiet child, Yuuto shrieked excitedly as Lee tossed him higher and higher, catching him under the armpits on each descent. 

“Look how big you are!” Lee enthused. “Soon I won’t even be able to pick you up!” Grinning widely, he presented the giggling child to Gai for inspection.

“Oh, yes,” Gai agreed, mock seriously. “He’s getting stronger by the day. No, the hour!”

Tenten laughed, still holding the plant, and set about looking for a place for it to live. “The vegetables for tonight are on the top shelf in the fridge,” she called over her shoulder as she moved further into the small apartment.

Lee saluted in reply. Whenever their team ate dinner together, they made dinner together too. It had become a tradition of sorts. Thinking back, it might have begun as an enforced bonding activity. Gai had always preached that teamwork didn’t start and end with each mission: it had to be lived, breathed, and presumably eaten too. 

Finding a good spot for the plant was a challenge. The thing was nearly twice as tall as her son and crowned by a thick halo of large, dark green leaves. Really, it was more a small tree than it was a house plant. After giving up on a half-hearted attempt to find it a home on one of her windowsills, Tenten manoeuvred it into the back corner of her kitchen, furthest away from the door. Congratulating herself on a job well done, Tenten admired the view. There was something majestic about the way it looked standing there: lively and vibrant against a backdrop of faded pastel wallpaper. It was a shame she wouldn’t have much time to appreciate it. 

Deliberately pushing that thought aside, Tenten rolled up her sleeves and turned to look at the most important people in her life, ready to get stuck in with dinner preparations.

Gai was bouncing the child up and down on one knee whilst he and Lee engaged in a boisterous competition to see who could slice the most carrots into miniature shuriken. Their faces were scrunched up in determination, and they were alternating between shouting encouragement at one another and expounding on the punishments they would set themselves should they lose.

It was a familiar scene, but Tenten was transfixed. She stood frozen, watching them, cataloguing every detail in her mind: the way the light bounced off of Gai’s hair, the steadily growing pile of shuriken shaped carrots, Lee’s furrowed brow and tensed jaw, the pitch of their voices, Yuuto’s tiny fingers grasping the edge of the table.

“Tenten,” Lee called out to her, “will you be the judge?” He paused just long enough to flash her an expectant smile and a rapid thumbs-up. The piece of carrot he was working on had five spikes, not the requisite four or six. It was sort of funny that after all these years on the same team as a weapons master, he still didn’t know how to balance a shuriken.

Tenten’s heart swelled. Before she knew it, she was sobbing her heart out into Lee’s shoulder.

“I just love you both so much,” she gasped between convulsions. 

Wide-eyed, Lee patted her back as though his life depended on it. He exchanged a look with Gai over her head. Gai cleared his throat decisively, signalling that he would be taking control of the situation.

“And we love you!” He loudly assured her, voice booming across the intimate space. Gai tilted his head meaningfully at Lee. 

Lee latched on to the cue. “Tenten,” he declared, “I would protect you with my life!”

Tenten laughed, pulling away from Lee just far enough to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. “Let’s make dinner,” she said, patting a shocked and confused Yuuto on the head soothingly as she moved past Gai to turn the oven on.

Gai and Lee nodded at each other in synchronisation, satisfied that they had taken the perfect action in response to a crisis.

 

* * *

 

After visiting the memorial stone to bid farewell to Neji, Tenten left Konoha in broad daylight. She walked out of the village gates with her son perched on her hip and a rucksack slung over one shoulder. 

She smiled warmly when she saw that Kotetsu and Izumo were on guard duty, somewhat glad to be sent off by familiar faces. After setting Yuuto down on the edge of the desk for Kotetsu to coo over, his chubby legs dangling mid-air, Tenten signed the two of them out in the log book with painstaking meticulousness. Once finished, she scanned her eyes over the open page, tracing the names of her friends and comrades. Her heart tightened in her chest. 

She steeled herself. It was too late for second thoughts. Well, technically it wasn’t too late yet, but she had made her mind up.

“So where are you heading?” Izumo asked, making casual conversation.

“River country is meant to be nice this time of year,” she offered, and she wasn’t lying. It was crucial that she and Yuuto could be easily tracked to the place where she would fake their deaths.

Kotetsu hummed agreeably and patted Yuuto on the head. “He looks more and more like his father every day,” he commented, offhandedly.

Tenten nodded, but her smile was uncharacteristically tight and her brow furrowed. She had accounted for disguising her child’s parentage, but perhaps it would be more difficult than she had thought if it was so obvious at such a young age. She could use contacts to add colour to his pearly-white irises, she could cut his hair short when the Hyuuga clan traditionally wore it long, but she could hardly change his bone structure.

Noticing her discomfort, but misinterpreting the cause, Kotetsu reached out to grasp Tenten’s shoulder with his hand and squeezed it supportively. “He was a good man. His sacrifice will never be forgotten,” he assured her in earnest. 

Tenten’s breath caught in her throat, startled by the unexpected display of kindness. She nodded in mute thanks, and this time the smile she gave Kotetsu was genuine, if tinged by sadness.

“I’ll be off then,” she said. She hoisted Yuuto up off the table, set his feet down on the ground, and took his hand in hers. 

As they walked away, Tenten coached Yuuto into waving goodbye to Konoha.


	2. Chapter 2

The soft crunch of leaves underfoot accompanied Tenten and Yuuto as they meandered their way through Fire Country towards the border to River Country. The sun streamed down through the overhead canopy, which was becoming sparser and sparser with every passing week as autumn staked its claim on the world.

Listening to the birds chattering excitedly to one another, unseen in the trees above, Tenten stretched her arms out above her head. Hearing the joints in her shoulders crack, she sighed in satisfaction. Next time they stopped for a break, she thought to herself, she would crack each and every one of her toes. She almost shivered in anticipation.

Tenten glanced down at Yuuto, who was walking beside her. He had a look of utter concentration on his small face, still rounded by baby fat, as he planted one foot in front of the other.

Tenten frowned in concern. “Are you feeling tired? Do you want me to carry you?” She asked.

Yuuto pulled a face.

Having Gai as a regular babysitter had taught Yuuto the value of hard work, determination, and challenging yourself to surpass your own limits. He had, perhaps, taken those lessons too much to heart and, at two-years-old, had developed something of an independent streak. 

Trying a slightly different tact, Tenten said, “It would help me with my training if you let me carry you, Yuuto.”

The boy halted his heavy trudge and considered her words. He nodded just slightly. “Training,” he echoed in solemn agreement.

Smothering a victorious grin, Tenten crouched down to offer him her back, her right knee pressing into the dirt. The boy dutifully climbed on.

Having Gai as a regular babysitter had also had the unexpected side effect of instilling the word ‘training’ with almost magical qualities. 

Tenten had come home from a long mission, three weeks tracking and then systematically destroying a drug smuggling cartel in Wave, the longest time she’d spent away from Konoha since giving birth, to find that under Gai’s watchful eye Yuuto’s entire life had been re-imagined as training. 

Eating vegetables? Training.

 _“To grow into a Strong and Valiant Shinobi of the Leaf you must treat your body with the utmost Respect! Every meal is an opportunity to strengthen it!”_

Story time? Training. 

_“Reading is the first step on the path to Writing, and Writing allows a shinobi to better Communicate with their Valued Comrades!”_

Tenten wasn’t convinced that Yuuto actually understood any of Gai’s explanations (he was two, after all, and there’s a limit to what even the brightest two-year-old can understand), but, with all the single-minded obsessiveness that came naturally to a Hyuuga, he had latched on to the idea of ‘training’. He seemed to accept it as a good enough justification for just about anything. 

At first, Tenten had valiantly tried not to abuse its power over her young son, but it had quickly become too convenient to resist. She had never claimed to be a perfect mother, anyway. And it wouldn’t work forever, she reasoned, so she might as well take advantage of any cheat codes the universe deigned to throw at her while she could. 

Being a shinobi was all about taking advantage of the opportunities your opponent gave you. Not that her son was an opponent, of course. But, then again, Tenten mused, it didn’t exactly hurt to think of him as one, in his own special way. 

Conscious suddenly miraculously clear, listening to Yuuto’s breathing steady and then deepen against her ear, Tenten congratulated herself on successfully navigating this particular bit of parenting. 

As an added bonus, while Yuuto slept she would be able to turn her attention to the next stages of her plan.

Looking to the sky, she calculated that she had roughly four hours before dusk. Ideally, by then they would have crossed the border into River Country and found a place to camp for the night. Preferably a cave, Tenten thought to herself, lengthening her stride. Easy to defend and protected from the elements. That would be perfect.

Tomorrow they would head west towards a small village called Asakawa. Passing through River Country on the return journey from her last mission, Tenten had spent the night there and had overheard rumours of nearby mercenary activity.

It had sounded like more like a nuisance to the locals than any real threat. Petty criminals, honestly.

At the time, Tenten had been exhausted from her mission and desperate to get home to her son. She had apologetically told the innkeeper that they could commission a mission from a Hidden Village if the problem worsened, and left without a backward glance or a second thought. 

Right now, it was something she could use. 

And she had all the time she could possibly need to figure out the most effective way to fit the mercenaries into her plan. There was no rush, and Tenten was damn well going to get this right.

After all, the Hyuuga were hardly going to come chasing after them. As far as they were concerned, they were the ones who had time on their side. The boy was only two-years-old, for heaven’s sake. They would assume that her impromptu holiday was nothing more than a futile attempt to delay the inevitable. 

They probably wouldn’t even consider that she could survive as a missing-nin, the bastards.

Although, that being said, she could understand why ‘treason’ wouldn’t immediately seem like the most reasonable route for her to take. 

She’d like to think she’d have done alright by herself, but with a kid there would be no chance of out-fighting or even out-running any ANBU on their trail. It pained her to admit it, because she had very much adopted Lee’s can-do, never-say-never attitude after the first Chuunin exams, but it was important to be realistic when you were deserting your village to protect your dead lover’s ideals.

A few years previously, before the alliances between nations, she could have defected. As a Jonin herself, and with her son’s Byakugan, they would have been welcomed with open arms into Kumo. Probably Iwa, too. (She wouldn’t trust Kiri as far as she could throw it.) Unfortunately, at the present time, no nation would be willing to jeopardise the tentative peace by accepting fugitives for at least another decade. After all, the war had decimated the Shinobi ranks.

Tenten had an epiphany.

She needed to replace Step Two (‘survive outside the village’) of her initial plan with the following: use unsuspecting mercenaries in Asakawa to fake her and Yuuto’s deaths, disguise themselves, and then go deep undercover as civilians.

Where’s the last place you’d look for a missing-nin? Inside another hidden village. 

It was the kind of thing someone would only do if they were very skilled, very confident, very foolish, or a combination of the above.

Tenten licked her lips, tongue darting out to wet the chapped skin. 

She would make it work.

* * *

Asakawa looked exactly the same as it had when she had last visited the village, but that was hardly surprising given that only a month or two had passed. 

It was an unhurried place. Children played in the street, shrieking and screaming riotously, and the buildings had clearly received more than their fair share of loving patch-ups: a section of roof here, part of a wall there, the occasional window that didn’t quite match the rest.

If Tenten remembered correctly, and a quick scout around the village confirmed that she did, there were two inns in Asakawa. Choosing the larger and more expensive establishment (because she was on holiday so screw it), Tenten politely greeted the receptionist, a homely looking woman in her mid-to-late-fifties, and paid up-front for a room for the week. 

After leaving their things in the room, Tenten cheerfully asked the woman if she could keep an eye on Yuuto for a few hours. Not waiting for a response, or giving any explanation as to where she was going, Tenten turned on her heel and headed out the front door of the established, letting it swing shut behind her. 

The woman stared after Tenten, her mouth hanging open in shock. She looked down at Yuuto warily. He stared back, expressionless, before moving to sit on the floor behind the welcome desk. 

He opened his picture book in silence and began to diligently study its multi-coloured pages, one after another. A beat later, the receptionist shrugged in resignation, and then, with a mournful glance at the unknown child sat at her feet, uncertainly picked up her own novel.

* * *

For Tenten it was time to conduct a bit of preliminary surveillance.

She tracked the group of mercenaries down easily enough. Crouching low in the undergrowth, Tenten absently twirled a kunai between her fingers and evaluated the abandoned brewery that her targets had co-opted as their base. Nice and flammable. Convenient. 

Of the five men that she could see, none immediately jumped out to her as a threat. They were gathered around a make-shift campfire, sitting on the floor in a loose circle, playing cards and guffawing loudly. 

While she watched, one of them lumbered to his feet, and sauntered towards the back wall. Unzipping his trousers, he relieved himself against the stonework, grinning in self-satisfaction. 

Tenten grimaced, but her disgust didn’t stop her from studying him intently and committing as many details about his appearance and the way he moved to memory. He was a hulking, burly mass of muscles, with obscene tattoos decorating every inch of exposed flesh below the jaw. It was the kind of look that would terrify civilians and young Genin, but to anyone with more experience it was obvious this man had more bark than bite. 

Trashy, really.

Having seen enough, and confident that she could perform a convincing henge of the man who thought pissing on his own home was a good idea, Tenten returned to Asakawa.

* * *

With a warm smile, Tenten reclaimed her son from the put-upon receptionist and slid the woman a few coins for her trouble.

Tenten had paid for a room for the week and she was damn well going to make the most of it. There was no need to get this particular show on the road for a few more days, especially given that she was only a week and a bit into her three months of approved leave. 

She was painfully aware that she might not get the chance to let her guard down and really be herself for years to come, if all went to plan. Maybe never.

* * *

In a whirl of leaves, a hulking, burly man covered in tattoos materialised in the middle of the main street and grabbed Yuuto around the waist, throwing the shocked child over his shoulder. In the same movement, he leapt back to create distance between himself and Tenten.

Tenten tried really, really hard to look surprised.

Yuuto screamed in distress, calling out for his mother. Guilt churned in Tenten’s stomach. Her heart lurched and she clenched her hands into fists at her sides, reminding herself that this was a necessary evil.

She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Stop, you monster! Unhand my son or I, Tenten, jōnin rank shinobi of the Leaf and the greatest weapons master in all the five nations, will engage you in combat.”

The clone laughed maniacally, as dictated by the pre-prepared script. “I’m taking him with me, bitch.” In Tenten’s experience, criminals often relied on misogynistic slurs when they wanted to make themselves seem dangerous. “His Byakugan eyes will fetch a good price on the black market.” The clone continued, speaking loudly to make sure that the civilians cowering against the nearby buildings could easily hear the reasoning behind the sudden kidnapping. 

Of course, Yuuto hadn’t activated the Byakugan yet, but it was a convincing motive nonetheless.

“Over my dead body!” Tenten shouted with enthusiasm, letting off a volley of kunai for the clone to deflect. “He’s the only thing I have left to remember my dead lover! I’ll die to protect him.” 

Sure, it was a touch on the theatrical side, but she wanted it to be memorable. And everyone loves a bit of foreshadowing. She had been practicing the dialogue in her head for the best part of a week now. Tragic stories create the best, most durable gossip, and she needed word of her son’s kidnapping and their subsequent deaths to travel all the way back to Konoha. 

She rushed after the kidnapper. Tenten swiped out with her leg, the man jumped. She punched, he blocked. The fight was choreographed. Tenten couldn’t risk accidentally striking a blow hard enough to dispel her own clone. It was actually an adaption of a relatively simple kata designed for two martial artists to perform together. Any shinobi who had mastered the requisite tai jutsu to advance to jonin level would have recognised it easily, but there were no shinobi here: only witnesses.

They disengaged. 

“Tenten of the Leaf,” the clone spat in disgust, clearly enunciating each syllable of her name, “you can’t stop me from taking his Byakugan!” Repetition was important. 

Tenten paused. 

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Shit, she had forgotten her next line. 

“Over my dead body!” She repeated, graspingly.

The clone hesitated. They looked at each other. 

Yuuto, demonstrating true ninja potential, took the clone’s distraction as an opportunity to writhe and kick, twisting in the clone’s grip, howling and spitting. Tenten twinged in pride. His instincts were wonderful, especially for someone so young. 

A moment later, the clone knocked Yuuto unconscious with a careful prod on the pressure points on the back of his neck, as pre-agreed.

It was silent. The scene had come to a standstill. 

Determined to get the show back on track, Tenten cleared her throat determinedly and dropped to her knees in what she assumed would pass for motherly anguish. “My son!” She gasped in horror. 

She locked eyes with the clone and very deliberately jerked her chin towards the window, hoping that he would take the hint. 

Understanding dawned in the clone’s eyes. He laughed maniacally, an improvisation that Tenten approved of, and dashed towards the forest.

Tenten launched herself after them. 

Of course, she and her clone were equally matched in terms of speed and stamina, so creating a convincing chase was perhaps the easiest part of the whole interaction.

* * *

She was panting and out of breath. Her muscles were burning. The fabric of her shirt clung uncomfortably to her skin and the sweat patches under her arms, between her breasts and on her upper back were dangerously close to joining forces and becoming a confederate state.

Damn, it didn’t take long for inactivity to start to ruin her body’s conditioning.

They came to a stop and the clone dispelled its henge when the mercenary’s base was a five-minute sprint to the North. It was early evening and light was fading fast. That was in her favour, but Tenten still needed to move fast in case any of the civilians had taken the initiative to send for help. 

Without hesitation, she wrapped Yuuto’s hair around her left fist, drew a kunai from her weapons pouch with her free hand, and cut through the strands in one smooth motion. The ragged, shoulder-length mop that is left is as un-Hyuuga-like as it is possible to be. Excellent.

Tenten handed her son back to her clone, pressed and swift kiss to his forehead for luck, and set off. She scattered the occasional strand of Yuuto’s hair on the way to the mercenary base, leaving a clear trail for any tracker to follow, should their deaths be investigated. It’s a little bit cliché, but it’s also convincing.

The clone, with Yuuto in her arms, headed north, wading through a stream to cover her tracks, towards the cave where they had stashed the few belongings that Tenten has allowed them to keep. The majority of their things have had to be abandoned at the inn. It would be suspicious otherwise. Some clothes, some money, and a cutting from the bright green jumpsuit that Gai had gifted Tenten in her genin days, are all that they will take with them into their own life. Even her team photograph would be too dangerous to risk.

* * *

Tenten killed the mercenaries quickly. By all accounts it was a smooth operation. All but four were hit by killing blows before they were able to fully process the fact that they were even under attack. 

The first of those that survived her initial assault launched himself at her, trying to get inside her defences. It was a good tactic, and even one that accounted for that fact he was facing a nin who specialises in long range projectiles, but it wasn’t good enough. She decapitated him with an axe.

The second and third follow shortly after.

The fourth begged for mercy, and Tenten felt her conscience churn but pushed any doubts away in favour of single-mindedly focusing on her end goal. 

With all threats incapacitated, Tenten gathered her scattered weapons. The only sounds were from her own footsteps and heavy breathing. After all this time, she still found the stillness and quiet of death a bit unnerving. Funny, how you can be alive one second, and then just like that, lights out. Gone. 

Absentmindedly, she swung the axe back and forth like a pendulum. Her eyes darted around the building, searching for signs of structural instability. 

The plan as a whole had been to engage the mercenaries in combat, kill them all, and then burn the whole place down, making it look like she and Yuuto had died in the blaze. No possible way to recover any of the bodies. All neat and tidy.

Tenten winced, imagining Lee and Gai’s reactions to the news of her death, and got to work.

Step one: fire.

Step two: a collapsed building.

Step three: a new life.


End file.
